


One of Those Days

by Meskeet



Series: h/c bingo fills 2017 [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Rey, F/M, Gen, Hurt!BB-8, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Missions Gone Wrong, Poe Dameron Hurts So Prettily, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Shipper Goggles Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 04:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13115652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meskeet/pseuds/Meskeet
Summary: Some days, it really felt like the whole galaxy was out to get them, weather included.





	One of Those Days

**Author's Note:**

> my ode to the love story that is Poe and BB-8, with a fresh helping of Rey being amazing and Poe being sick. 
> 
> for "forced to face fear" on my h/c bingo card. Extra thanks to Alex, who as usual helped point me in the right direction just as I was ready to call it quits.

Some days it really felt like the whole galaxy was out to get him. It was the type of thought that would have made Leia Organa laugh and say, _Dameron, you’re not as nearly as special as you think you are_.

 _Well, General,_ Poe thought as his feet scrabbled to find any sort of solid earth beneath his feet. _That might be true, but I don’t think the Empire agrees_.

Granted, it wasn’t as though he was considered all that special by the First Order, if they thought of him at all. Sure, Poe excelled at being exceptionally annoying and remarkably skilled when it came to blowing things up – generally in his spaceship, as had been pointed out to him on more than one occasion – but there were a lot of people who fulfilled that criteria in the First Order’s book. Well, there used to be, at least, before the Resistance was almost destroyed.

Still, what it essentially came down to was this: although the First Order would gladly hunt down Organa or Rey or even Finn to the ends of the known universe, if Poe happened to be stupid enough to ever be spotted by them, they wouldn’t exactly ignore him.

 _Ignoring_ _him_ was, in fact, the opposite of what they were doing now.

“C’mon, buddy! I need you to help me out here!”

The cable in his hands didn’t even need to slip. Although Poe had a deathgrip on it, it was his footing that was the true problem. It didn’t matter if Poe kept a hold of the rope if the two of them fell anyway, all because he couldn’t keep his balance on a bit of snow and loose rock.

Below him, BB-8 let out a quiet wail of alarm, body whirling away against the unstable surface. The droid’s grip shot out, driving into the rocks below them. For a moment, Poe felt the tension in the rope go slack as the metal limb steadied BB-8’s fall. Poe found his own grip, setting his feet against the slightly upraised edge of the rocks. It was the work of the moment to loop the cable once more around the tree, to turn, to set his feet against the trunk, and wrap the free end around his arm.

“I got you, buddy!” Poe called, ignoring the hive of activity from far below. They’d set the charges easily enough, BB-8 easily hacking them into the small base’s mainframe. Between the two of them, they’d downloaded enough codes to provide the Resistance with a small fortune to continue waging their war. Unfortunately their departure hadn’t gone as planned and when the explosions had gone off – well, the bridge they were supposed to escape over to reach his ship wasn’t exactly as stable as expected. He’d barely had time to anchor BB-8 with the cable the droid had shot at him before they had fallen.

Another blaster shot narrowly missed Poe’s face as he ducked behind the tree. There was a horrible screech from BB-8, a brutal noise of pain, a harsh _snap_ of metal and then the tree shuddered as his droid’s weight abruptly fell onto it once more. If Poe could just pull him up, they could take one of the steep paths down the slope, find a place to cross the river below without BB getting wet, and take refuge in the caverns they’d scouted out _just in case_.

But all of that relied on Poe getting BB-8 back onto steady ground, and –

Two more shots hit the tree, because apparently even if they couldn’t hit Poe, the Stormtroopers wanted to hit _something._ Poe had just enough time to think _oh, skrag_ , before another shot splintered the tree entirely, an explosion of wood shards and sap flying through the air. He barely had time to duck his face away, splinters lodging in his arms and side and chest before the rope holding BB-8 clenched tight around his arm.

He didn’t even have time to try to stop his fall – the rope yanked him backwards, BB-8’s weight causing him to slide along rock and gravel and _that’s going to hurt when this is all over_ and then Poe went straight off the edge in a shower of dust, rocks, and gravel.

Poe hit the water with a jarring impact, the cold a shock through his bones – and then the two of them were sinking under the surface, the rapid current dragging them along with brutal efficiency. Poe struggled to free himself from the rope – he couldn’t get them out if he was drowned, after all – but then his back slammed into an ill-placed rock and, well.

That was it.

\--

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe -

“-eron? Poe?”

\- he couldn’t _kriffing_ breathe –

“I’m going to turn you over so you can breathe. Just-”

_BB-8? Where’s BB-8?_

“-stay with me, okay? I’m going to get you out of here.”

_We can’t leave him, no no no-_

\--

Consciousness came gently, lapping at the edges of the darkness like a sunrise: the faint glow filled him, washed through his chest and into his toes, the very force of it making him cough.

No – that was warmth, he thought drowsily. A beautiful warmth that quickly turned into sharp pricks of pain when he tried to curl his fingers.

“Poe?” someone asked, a hand curling tight around his aching fingers. It wasn’t a soft hand – in fact, callused palms caught at his own, the skin rough enough to be felt through the pinpricks of pain. “Are you awake?”

He knew that voice, he should be able to name it – but then he coughed again, and the nagging familiarity disappeared. He’d figure it out or he wouldn’t, but for now he was so, so warm. His left arm ached with every heartbeat – _throb throb throb –_ but that wasn’t important. Something solid and warm pressed against him, a reassuring weight.

“Hey, I need you to open your eyes.”

Poe made a noise of protest – one that he hadn’t made in years, not since he’d slept under his mother’s tree, under the summer suns of Yavin IV. It was a whine, a _c’mon_ , _do I have to_ , and it made whoever was keeping him company laugh. He could feel the movement through his aching bones – even his teeth ached, which seemed extremely unfair.

“Dun – wanna.”

Talking _hurt_ in a way it shouldn’t have, shards of swallowed glass rubbing his throat raw. Or at least it felt that way. Kylo Ren should be envious of whatever did this to him. It almost made him forget his stupid arm.

“Where’s BB-8, Poe?”

_Throb throb throb._

He wouldn’t have let BB-8 go. Poe knew that much. “-’s with me.” _Don’t be stupid._

Something hit his cheek with blistering force. Poe’s eyes snapped open.

Dark hair falling in mats, framing a strong jawline, darker eyes set into an exhausted expression – Rey grimaced back at him, wrapped in what he thought he recognized as a thermal blanket packed _just in case you do something stupid, Dameron,_ and tucked against his side. The light of the fire sent shadows dancing along her cheekbones, throwing the exhaustion on her face into sharp relief.

“Poe, _where’s BB-8_ ,” Rey demanded, a muscle along her jaw flexing as she did. He didn’t need to see her hands to know her fists were clenched under the blanket. She pulled away from him, and he missed that heavy weight at his elbow.

“Fell in the river,” Poe told her, hardly recognizing his own voice under the slur. He shivered, teeth clattering together, which didn’t make sense because he was so, so warm. “Was holding the cable.”

If she was asking where BB-8 was…. Poe grasped for her, blanket falling aside. Rey yanked the free edge away from the fire, catching Poe with her other arm as he almost toppled over. He yelped as the throbbing arm shrieked with agony at the sudden movement. “Rey, we can’t leave BB-8. We can’t, we have to find him-”

A light brush over his mind, a comforting warmth that rivaled the blanket in peace and contentment. “Poe,” Rey soothed, her voice gentle. “I’ll find him – you said he went in the water? Just go back to sleep, I’ll find him.”

“Need to help you – he’s going to be scared if he’s been alone and -“

“Poe, _sleep.”_

He slept.

\--

Desert nights were cold. It was a simple statement, but one Poe hadn’t really understood until the crash. Until he’d woken up without his jacket and concussed and trying to piece together who, where, what he was. Desert nights were cold, someone had told him once, but what they hadn’t said was the way the chill made every grain of sand into a sharp of ice scraping his feet raw, that the wind would howl and scream and the only reason it didn’t deafen him was because he’d freeze before it reached that point. Poe remembered walking and walking and _looking_ for BB-8 until – no, he’d been swimming. Swimming and with one of BB-8’s cables wrapped around his arm, so tight that he was half-convinced they’d hit the bottom of the river and never surface again.

 _This is it_ , he had thought on Jakku and in the water and when Kylo Ren had captured him and a hundred times since. _This is it, this time, Dameron._

Something brushed over him, and he recognized that hint of the Force as it slipped through thought, through memory.

Poe jolted awake, rolling to his feet and almost falling over in the same breath. Someone had been looming over him and they snatched at him now, pulling him away from the lively fire he almost fell face-first into. Poe pushed them away, almost sending the two of them both toppling into the fire that has left bright splotches bursting on his vision.

“Kylo Ren,” he said, frantically, because the slight touch had been all too-familiar, just a little too-searching. The figure reached for him, hands grasping, and Poe lashed out again. When his legs refused to stay steady, he sank back to the ground.

“Poe! It’s me – It’s me, Rey.”

The words were slow to make sense. Poe could hear them, but processing them felt like it took years. “Kylo?” he asked, uncertainly. He had been so, so sure that Kylo Ren had been the one to reach out to his mind except – he had been on Jakku, too. And… “This isn’t Jakku.”

“Easy, Poe.”

This time, Poe didn’t resist when two hands gripped his wrists. Rey dropped down beside him, pulled at one of the thermal blankets he had dropped to the floor and threw it over the both of them.

“It was just me,” Rey said. “I didn’t think you’d be able to sense it – you looked like you were in pain and-”

“Jakku,” he said again. Rey, against his side, stopped speaking. “I – this isn’t Jakku. Where’s BB-8? What did they do to my droid?”

“ _Shh._ Rest.” This time, he recognized the barest hint of a Force suggestion – but he was too tired to be angry and Rey was warm like the desert (like Jakku’s blazing sun) and he thought he still might be cold and –

\--

When Poe woke, he was alone. The fire in front of him popped, nothing more than a dim glow.

He didn’t panic. His breath didn’t catch in his throat, he didn’t have another coughing fit, he didn’t jar the arm Rey had wrapped in the scraps of dark gauze she usually threw on top of her tunic and he certainly didn’t let out a loud curse as his eyes stung with tears. He _didn’t_ do any of that, and if he squeaked maybe a little when he moved his arm, well, no one was there to see.

It took several moments, but Poe eventually sat up. Rey had left what looked like kindling next to the fire – quickly he edged the dry wood into the glowing embers, watching how the bark shriveled into ash under the heat.

Poe let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, clutching the blanket that had fallen off of his shoulders. He was in a cave – that much was clear. Rey had left him curled up against a rough sandstone wall, his belongings – clothes included – scattered across the floor, likely to dry. Poe grimaced as he poked the nearest tunic with his toe. Still wet.

Hanging out in a freezing cave, naked except for an insulation blanket, wasn’t exactly his idea of a good time.

He tucked his bad arm closer against his chest, tipping his head back against the rock. There’d been a mission… with BB-8? They’d hacked a terminal, almost gotten clear, BB-8 had taken a rocket to his body and –

That explained the arm. The last thing he could remember was the cable he’d been using to try to hold onto BB-8 snapping tight against his bone. Rey must have given him at least a localizer and set it if he was halfway functioning, even if the thought of trying to use it for anything at all made him blanch.

Another cough shook Poe. He gasped for breath, trying to ignore the ache in his ribs. When the fit passed, Poe hunched over, shaking in a mixture of exhaustion and relief that he could finally breathe.

Rey would find BB-8. She would. She had to. But, what if-

Poe clenched his jaw, pushing his feet underneath him and bracing his right arm – his good arm – against the stone.

_On three, Dameron._

“One, two-”

His head spun and he sat down with a thump, hissing.

He would just have to trust Rey for now. If she didn’t bring his droid back, then – well, Poe would just have to try again.

He tucked the blanket tighter around himself, and before Poe knew it, he was asleep again.

\--

The next time Poe woke, his head felt remarkably cleared – an ache lingered, not too different from a mild hangover – but the fevered haze everything had taken had receded somewhat.

What was even better was that he woke to the smell of something cooking over the fire.

“BB-8?” was the first thing he said, ignoring his kriffing throat.

Rey didn’t answer, not at first. Instead, she half-turned, grabbing something off the ground and tossing it underhanded towards him. Poe didn’t quite manage to stop it from smacking him in the face.

“Get dressed,” she said, shortly. “Eat.”

Yeah, she was probably right. This was probably a conversation that would go better with pants.

He didn’t quite snatch the shirt from where it fell from the ground, but it was a close thing. He wasn’t exactly… embarrassed, but the way she was very, very determinedly looking anywhere at him was enough to make him pull the tunic over his head quickly. Generally his female companionship was pleased to see him with his shirt off, but Rey just looked mildly perturbed.

“You talk,” he croaked, throat aching with the effort. Every movement made his eyes sting, and he desperately needed a distraction from the ache in his chest.

Rey did that thing that Poe remembered from his childhood: she didn’t quite meet his eyes, _shrinking_ almost physically as she prodded the stick she was using to roast the fish deeper into the fire. She was fully dressed herself, something he only noticed when she pushed her sleeves back with resignation.

Poe’s ribs and arms were aching by the time Rey passed him the fish, and he was pretty sure the smile he tried to give her came across as a grimace. She didn’t comment on it, just retreated to the opposite side of the fire once more and gnawed on what looked like a pack of dry rations.

“I’m sorry, Poe,” she said softly. “I’ve been looking but the temperature must have gone up yesterday afternoon. There was a mudslide upstream and I wasn’t able to cover as much ground as I wanted to.”

Poe bit back something more cutting that she deserved – unlike him, she had actually been out there looking for his droid – and opened his mouth. He closed it again, realizing anything he said would likely be some combination of anger and blame when none of this was because of her.

It was on him, him and his usual level of half-assed plan.

“You were supposed to be my backup?” he asked, except Rey flinched and he realized that he’d said it entirely the wrong way.  In fact, once he thought on it, he was sure that Rey was supposed to stay with the ship and only provide backup if Poe called it in.  “I mean – why’d you come after me?”

 “The General received word that your mission may have been compromised with the First Order. She found who did it, but didn’t want to notify you about the situation before they could make the arrest.” She tapped her head. “I was told an hour or so after the two of you left and -”

And the landscape would have blocked any ground-to-ground signaling.

“I was too late to do much at all, really.” Rey shrugged in that way of hers. “I just managed to pull you out and get rid of the troops following you, but I don’t know how long we have before they find us.”

“I’m not leaving without BB-8.” Poe said, not because he honestly thought that Rey would, but because he felt _someone_ had to say it.

She gave him a look. “Neither am I. He would have the information you recovered anyway. I would know.”

Rey nodded at the rest of Poe’s things, strewn around the fire. He frowned.  If Rey had spread his things to dry, then she must have seen the drive he had stowed in his pocket. Poe opened his mouth once more, but Rey gave him another of those looks.

“I – yeah, BB-8 would have everything for the mission,” Poe said, biting into the fish. It was overcooked and dry, but he forced himself to swallow another bite. He must have made some sort of face though, because Rey gave a short laugh.

“Sorry,” she said. “Not many fish on Jakku.”

Poe shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

Rey fell silent and Poe could have kicked himself. Still, he didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make it worse, so he took another bite of the charcoal.

She stood abruptly. “The First Order likely moved on by now,” she said. “I’m going to go look some more. My pack has more food in it if you’re hungry, see if you can’t get the distress beacon out.”

And with that, she grabbed a coat up from next to her and shrugged it on, stalking towards one of the many tunnels branching out of their cave.

\--

Rey didn’t come back, but the First Order did.

Poe was half-dozing when he’d heard booted feet echo down the corridor, heels stamping the dirt into submission in a way Rey never would. At first, he thought it was just another hazy dream brought about by the heat crawling up his skin – except then he heard the faint barking tones of a First Order officer.

Moving _hurt_ , but Poe hastily kicked dirt over the fire, scrambling to sweep up all of their belongings. He wouldn’t be able to carry both bags, so he hastily shoved everything he could into Rey’s and brushed dirt up over his own.

Breathing was… not fun, which meant that his first steps were their own level of horrible. Rey had taken her staff, which reduced Poe’s walk into this slow shamble that relied on the wall to stay upright. He didn’t try to remain quiet: his combat boots left clear footprints in the dirt, although  Rey had come and gone enough that it might take them some time to narrow down which set of tracks was freshest.

There were four tunnels to choose from – one was currently occupied by the First Order, and he couldn’t remember which one Rey had taken before. BB-8 would know, but…

Poe picked the one that looked like Rey had used the most frequently. Each step was agony, a slow crawl of pain that culminated in his searing chest. Poe tried to cough, once.

When he didn’t stop, he shoved his fist in his mouth and bit down, body shaking until he managed to hold it down. “C’mon, Dameron,” he said, hoarsely. “Finn’ll never let you live down getting captured by the First Order.”

Easier said than done, he realized, when he tried to take one more step and then his legs gave out completely. Poe hit the ground with a thump and a grunt.

This was probably what it felt to be an AT-ST when it took a direct hit. All explosions and shrapnel and –

“Dramatic, Poe,” he tried to say, but choked on the words and just ended up coughing instead. _Force_ , his ribs felt like someone had taken a lightsaber to them. He slowly, slowly managed to push himself to the side of the tunnel. He was just… going to take a moment. That was it.

\--

_“Oh for Force’s sake, Poe. Can’t you stay still for ten minutes?”_

\--

His head kept smacking into something.

Poe frowned, becoming aware in sharp bursts. Everytime he started to lull off to sleep, whatever was carrying him would adjust how he was laying and sensation would crawl anew across him. It was rather difficult to breathe, he realized dimly. That wasn’t good.

“Rey?” he hissed, tentatively. He wasn’t sure if looking would make things worse or significantly improve the vertigo. “Didn’t know if you were coming back.”

The footsteps faltered, just for a moment. “We need to get back to the ship. The First Order found us,” she said, slowly. Poe forced his eyes open just in time for his chin to bounce off her back once more. “Your fever’s back and I don’t – I need the medical supplies.”

Poe thought about that for a moment, forced his eyes open again as everything started to tilt again. “Sounds reasonable,” he muttered. “Wake me up when we get there, m’kay?”

\--

_The Stormtroopers held tight, no matter how hard he struggled. He could taste the blood in his mouth, the –_

_—salt under his feet, red silt peeking underneath, they were going to –_

_— die here, alone, stumbling under the sun of Jakku. He didn’t even have his jacket. Maybe the Rebellion could identify him by his mother’s ring, but more likely than not they’d never find his body. The First Order would find them and destroy the Republic and… Poe sighed. He had to trust BB-8, he had to…_

_He had to find him._

“Poe, I need you to stay here.” Rey. Dark eyes shadowed, face flushed with cold. “Don’t move, okay? I need to take care of something.”

_A lightsaber – not green like Luke’s, not red like he had been expecting, but silver hums to life._

_Don’t go._

Brief snatches of what he thought might be real but also could be dreams – the harsh blasts of rifles, bolts flashing red against the jagged landscape.

He had to help Rey, he had to help BB-8, except he couldn’t even _begin_ to imagine standing. Poe picked one hand out of the snow, tried to bend his fingers, and let it flop back down.

_Stay focused, Dameron._

“Got it, Leia,” Poe muttered, blinking and shaking his head to try to clear it. All it did was make him dizzier. “Rey – Rey.”

Someone screamed, and then all fell silent.

“Poe,” Rey gripped his hand in her own. Everything went darker around the edges as the lightsaber’s hum cut off. Rey felt solid, in a way nothing else was quite managing to be. “They’ve backed off, for now.”

She steadied him, pulling him to his feet. Poe staggered, clinging to her until his vision stopped churning. “Can you walk?” she asked. She hadn’t put the lightsaber away.

Poe grimaced. “Not alone.”

A blaster pressed in to his hand. He recognized the make, vaguely – outdated by about a year and a half, if he guessed correctly. It would do in a pinch. “Don’t shoot unless I tell you,” Rey ordered, but she didn’t let him go. “Not even if you see Kylo Ren.”

Poe shook his head again. “Got it, General.”

\--

_Wake up! Wake up!_

“Poe,” Rey leaned in close, her breath ghosting across his skin. “ _Wake up_ , Poe.”

“’ey?”

“I gave you the relamivir – medical said that should help stabilize you for now, but we can’t stay much longer. I’m going to seal the ship behind me and find BB-8, okay?”

“Come with?”

She laughed at that. “You could try. I’ll find BB-8 – _I promise_ – but I need you to stay here. You’re sick, and the medicine is going to accelerate your symptoms before you get better.”

That made… sense, Poe guessed. “Find BB-8.”

Rey leaned back, patted him on the hand. “I will, Poe. I will.”

\--

He was sweating and it didn’t seem to matter how many layers he shed, but the heat wouldn’t go away.

When he woke and Rey was still gone, Poe paced the length of the ship. It was a small ship-to-surface vessel, which meant he spent just as much time banging his shins into their bunks as he did actually walking. An ache was growing in his bones, biting into his muscle and even the smallest step made him wince.

It was the rare occasion that Poe had time to run a proper pre-flight check, but he couldn’t even enjoy the experience. Although he would have sworn up and down he could run through one in his sleep – even droidless – he kept skipping and later remembering small steps in the chain. When Poe finally gave in and pulled up an actual list, the words swam in from of him.

Poe sank into the pilot’s chair, slowly. It didn’t matter the number of times he checked the thermal capacitor readings, nothing could quite distract him from the sharp pinpricks of pain or the heat under his skin.

He was dozing again when he felt the burst of fresh – _cold, wonderfully cold_ – air across his skin. Rey perched on the armrest of the chair, her poncho shedding small crystals of ice across the floor. Beneath them, the ship started to shudder as it began through the take-off sequencing. Rey reached over to flip a switch and a few long moments passed before Poe felt them jolt away from the surface.

“I found him,” she said quietly. Rey looks different here, the shadows under her eyes a contrast to the bright lights of their ship. “But, Poe-”

She glanced up, looking almost immediately as though she regretted the motion. Rey didn’t look at Poe, however – instead, her eyes went behind him, to the main cabin beyond, and he followed her gaze. Poe rose, shaking Rey off, as he limped into the compartment of their ship.

Poe practically choked. BB-8 lay in two pieces, his head place gently on the floor next to his main sphere. The only reason for that would be if the power running the magnet that kept him together had been cut – and, when Poe looked more closely, everything became clearer.

The artillery BeeBee had taken must have shattered the hull: wiring and other shards of metal were clear, jagged at the edges from where they’d been torn apart with the force of the explosion. Though the little droid was normally waterproof, exposed wiring in anything that ran off of power was still exposed wiring. With the fall in the water…

Poe sank down next to BB-8, laying his hand on the little droid’s body and choking back on a cough. He wouldn’t let Rey see him cry, he _wouldn’t_. Especially over a droid, even if it was BB-8, who had outlasted more dogfights than most of the Resistance, who had more secrets than most of the command staff, who was braver than a hundred Stormtroopers and –

“We can fix this,” Poe said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “We will.”

Rey’s eyes were wide; she glanced from BeeBee to him and back again. She didn’t look too confident in his conviction.

“Rey.”

“We will,” she agreed, quiet. “We owe him, and even if we didn’t… It’s BB-8.”

Maybe she was only saying it because Poe was half-ready to crawl over to start trying to fix him himself, and Rey was worried that he’d injure himself doing it. Or maybe she actually believed him. Poe didn’t care much either way.

“I looked him over,” she said, steady, and it was those words that drove home to Poe what being a scavenger on Jakku actually meant. “We don’t have the type of equipment necessary to reboot his systems, but Rose should back on base. I’ll start to repair what I can, but -“ she fell silent.

Poe didn’t know what she was going to say. _I didn’t repair droids, I just scrapped them? It’s not worth the time now?_

“-ships are easier,” she said at last, as Poe reached forward, pulled BB-8’s head into his lap. No familiar lights flickered in response to his touch. “It’s going to take time for everything to dry as well. I don’t think any memory components were damaged, but… if I start trying to fix things, and anything static goes off or – I don’t want to hurt him any more.”

And they wouldn’t know anything until BB-8 was repaired and rebooted. She didn’t need to spell it out for him.

“That’s – yeah. I get it. We can start patching everything up on the way back, and then Rose will take care of the rest.”

He lowered his head, covered his eyes with his arm. Rey’s tentative footsteps cross the cabin of their ship and stop in front of him.

Slowly, carefully, she wrapped her arms around him, as though she wasn’t quite sure how to do it properly. It didn’t matter that he was still sweating, that the fever was still filling his skin. Poe just let his head tip forward, rest on her collarbone.

“We’re going to fix him,” Rey said, firmly. “Us and Rose and I bet even Finn will try to help, though I’m not sure what good he can do.”

Poe chuckled, just a little, at that. “Force tell you that?”

He can feel her laugh more than hear it, a small vibration against him. “No,” she said. “It didn’t have to.”

\--

It took them three days to reach the new Resistance base, and Rose was waiting for them when they land. Poe shook off the doctor waiting for _him_ , marched straight up to Rose and said, “Can you fix him?”

Rose raised an eyebrow at him, then looked past him to the two medical personnel Poe was still trying to brush off. “Can you fix _him?_ ” she asked.

Poe chose to ignore the doctor’s comment in return, still staring at Rose.

“Of course I’ll fix him,” Rose said, looking past him at Rey. Poe didn’t need to turn to read her expression. “ _You_ get better, and I’ll think about letting the two of you help.”

\--

It took one week before Rose finally threw her soldering torch at Poe and said, “Out! Go get sleep before you get _me_ sick.”

\--

It took four more days after _that_ for Rose to gesture Poe over. He’d taken to filing his backlog of mission reports in the corner, watching Rey use the Force to try to gently levitate parts and tools over to Rose. Sometimes she did it so gently that Rose only needed to stick out her hand and then a spool of wire or insulator would be in her hand. Other times, Finn would reach over, push her head down just in time to avoid a pipe wildly spinning across the room.

“Sorry, sorry!” Rey would say.

So when Rose put down her wrench with a sigh and said, “Get over here,” it took Poe a moment to figure out what she meant. He was up in a scramble, shedding blankets and almost spilling the thermos of tea across the floor.

She had returned all the panels but one into place and Poe smiled as he brushed his hand over where he knew there had once been a jagged hole.

Rose slipped a panel into his hand. “Go ahead,” she said.

“You’re done?” Poe asked, kneeling down next to her. Rey drifted over from where she had been gently tugging items out of Finn’s reach, a grin spreading over her face.

“ _We_ are, or at least we should be.” Rose poked him in the ribs. “Well?”

The panel slid neatly into place, disappearing almost without a seam. Poe gently ran his fingers along the bottom of BB’s head, the _on_ sequence a familiar feel. He pulled away reluctantly and it wasn’t until he had to cough that he realized he was holding his breath.

_Beep. Beep. beepbeepbeep. beeeeeeep._

The smile grew on Poe’s face and he looked up, met Rey’s eyes. They were full of cautious delight which only grew when there was a sharp trill.

Poe had just a moment to brace himself and then BB-8 hit him like a missile, toppling him onto the ground. The droid quivered with excitement, head making quick revolutions to take in the room around him. Someone – Rey – laughed, and the sound had just an edge of wonder.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe said, laying a hand on his droid. Rey dropped down beside him, her weight bumping into his side. BB-8 chirped, then, head butting once more into Poe. The droid let out a low croon, rolling forward just a little more.

"Yeah." Poe swallowed thickly. "It's good to see you too."

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider commenting if you enjoyed =)


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